Conference Overview

As it enters its 36th year, public television, a widely respected and controversial American cultural, educational, and journalistic public institution, is at a crossroads. With the development of new communications technologies and the ceaseless creation of new programming outlets, as well as its ever-contested reliance on everything from pledge nights to public financing, public broadcasting finds itself faced with a series of questions:

In its quest for audiences large enough to attract financial support, to what extent has public broadcasting had to abandon its historic mission of serving “the underserved”, ie, children and minorities?

Do new technologies afford public broadcasting an opportunity to return to its original broadcast mission?

What workable alternatives are there to the current financial structures of public broadcasting? How dependent should public broadcasting be on government funding? On pledge drives? On corporate support?

Why is there such a lack of local programming on so many public broadcasting stations and what will it take to increase such programming?

What can public television learn from public and other forms of radio?

Has PBS outgrown its organizational framework, in place for almost 40 years?

Each of these questions, though requiring discrete answers, ultimately address a larger concern: how can PBS meet its original mission of providing an alternative to commercial television and serving “the underserved” while achieving large enough audiences to generate financial support?

This conference united a nationally renowned selection of public television executives, program producers, media critics, and academics for a unique and candid discussion about the current state of America's public broadcasting institutions.

Agenda and Transcripts

DAY 1: THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2004

WELCOME

9:00-9:15 a.m.

Welcome and conference outline from Carroll Joynes, Executive Director, Cultural Policy Center at The University of Chicago.

SESSION 1: KEYNOTE ADDRESS

9:15-10:00 a.m.

"The Future of Public Television," a keynote address by Pat Mitchell, President and CEO, PBS.

Ms. Mitchell will address the complicated funding issues facing public broadcasting. She will also discuss both new PBS programming and the programming opportunities afforded by the development of digital channels and other technological advances.

SESSION 3: ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING AND A PANEL DISCUSSION

10:30-11 a.m.

Kathleen Cox, President and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will address the conference.

11:00 am-Noon

A moderated analysis of the first three conference addresses and audience Q&A.

Participants will include:

Newton Minow, former Chairman, Federal Communications Commission

Lawrence Grossman, former President, PBS and NBC News

William J. McCarter, former President and CEO, WTTW, Chicago

Possible points of discussion:

Is the very term “public television” counterproductive given that many viewers think their tax dollars fund public television, when in reality, many stations exist on a preponderance of non-tax funding?

How does PBS plan to deal with declining audiences on a national level? How much should ratings matter in public television? What should we make of pledge drives, detested by so many television critics?

How is public television coping with the competition from cable channels and other outlets that now specialize in programming once dominated by public television-the Arts and Entertainment Channel, Disney, Odyssey, C-Span, Bravo, the Discovery Channel and Discovery Kids and Science, the History Channel, Nickelodeon, and BBC America-just to name a few examples?

Where is the real power in the public television system-with the stations? PBS? The Corporation for Public Broadcasting? The state legislatures? Ideally, how should the power be distributed?

SESSION 4: THE STATIONS’ VIEW OF THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC TELEVISION

“The Stations’ View the Future of Public Television,” an address by John Lawson, President and CEO, The Association of Public Television Stations

1:45-2:45 p.m.

The Stations Speak

John Callaway will moderate a panel discussion between executives from a variety of public television stations.

Participants will include:

Dan Schmidt, President and CEO, WTTW Chicago

James Pagliarini , President and CEO, Twin Cities Public Television

Sherri Hope Culver, General Manager, WYBE, Philadelphia

Sandra Session-Robertson, General Manager, WCEU-TV, Daytona Beach

2:45-3:30 p.m.

Questions for the panel from the audience.

Possible points of discussion:

Are the interests of large public television stations so irreconcilable from the smaller stations and state systems that a kind of “U.N. Security Council versus U.N. General Assembly” system is needed?

Why are so many communities served by “overlapping” public television stations? Are there too many public television stations? What are the financial and viewership consequences of these overlapping stations?

Some of the smaller public stations mostly "push the button" to relay the national programming schedule. They provide little in the way of local programming. Why should they exist?

DAY 2: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2004

SESSION 1: SHOULD PUBLIC TELEVISION LISTEN TO THE RADIO?

Welcome back from Carroll Joynes, Executive Director, Cultural Policy Center at The University of Chicago.

9:15-10:00 a.m.

Should Public Television Listen to the Radio?

Moderated panel discussion with radio executives, including:

Kevin Klose, President and CEO, National Public Radio

Torey Malatia, President and General Manager, WBEZ Chicago Public Radio

Steve Robinson, Senior Vice-President for Radio, WFMT Radio, Chicago

10:00-10:30 a.m.

Questions from the moderator and the audience.

Possible points of discussion:

Why does national public television lack the kind of national and international news service provided by National Public Radio, and should public television produce such a service?

Why can't public television stations make the kind of program contributions to PBS national television programming that local reporters, producers, and programmers make to the national public radio services?

Local public radio stations are provided with all kinds of opportunities to "cut into" NPR news programs with local updates. Why is this resisted by the Lehrer News Hour on PBS?

WFMT Chicago is a non-profit fine arts radio station that runs commercials. Could this be a model for some public television stations?

SESSION 4: NOW TELL US WHAT YOU REALLY THINK

2:30-4:00 p.m.

Veteran broadcast journalist John Callaway will lead a plenary session of all the presenters and panelists who have stayed for the second day of the conference. This will be a “last chance” opportunity for those who have participated in the panels and members of the audience to raise questions not yet answered or to underscore arguments made earlier in the sessions. Mr. Callaway will attempt to identify both the “calls to action” that have been made during the conference, and the policy recommendations that have emerged.

Speaker Bios

Ken Auletta has been the author of the media column “The Annals of Communication” for The New Yorker since 1992. He is also the author of nine books, including four bestsellers. Auletta has a long and varied career in both media and politics. He has served as Special Assistant to the U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce, and has worked on several political campaigns. Beginning in 1974, he wrote for publications such as the New York Post, the Village Voice, and was a contributing editor of New York magazine. Between 1977 and 1993, he wrote a weekly political column for the New York Daily News. He has hosted numerous public television programs and served as a political commentator for both NBC and CBS. Auletta has won several journalism honors, including being named a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library and receiving the National Magazine Award for Profile Writing in 2002. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Auletta holds an M.A. in Political Science from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. The State University of New York awarded him a Doctor of Letters in 1990.

Karen J. Bond, a media activist and management consultant, came to Evanston from North Carolina to complete her degree in biology at Northwestern University. This started four years of campus activism on issues such as women’s health, university recruitment policies for people of color, and the university’s role within the local community of Evanston as well as in society at large. She went on to a career in middle and upper management with several multinational corporations, including IBM and Xerox, where she won numerous awards of merit. She is now a business management consultant, with an avocation of activism in the fields of media and anti-racism. She has completed an extensive formal training curriculum on institutional racism and also consults with major institutions on analyzing and designing structures to better serve the needs of a culturally diverse workforce and client population. As a member of the “Anti-Racism Commission” (of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago), the “Black Mobilization Committee Against the War”, “Chicago Media Action” and other activist organizations, she works to help the poor and working class public gain a sense of it’s own power with respect to such issues as government accountability, institutional racism, and the role of public broadcasting.

John D. Callaway was host of WTTW’s CHICAGO TONIGHT news analysis and interview program from its inception in l984 to June, 1999. After stepping back from that full-time staff position, Callaway has embarked on a free lance career which has him serving as Host and Senior Editor of WTTW’s CHICAGO STORIES documentary and mini-series programs, host of the FRONT AND CENTER WITH JOHN CALLAWAY monthly series at the Pritzker Military Library in Chicago, and co-ordinator of The University of Chicago’s Cultural Policy Center conference on “The Future of Public Television.” Callaway’s broadcast work has been honored with more than one hundred awards, including 15 EMMYS. He is the recipient of nine honorary degrees. He was the founding News Director of the WBBM-Chicago all-news format. He was the founding Director of the William Benton Fellowships program in Broadcast Journalism at the University of Chicago. Recently he has written and starred in two one-man autobiographical productions at Pegasus Players in Chicago. He began his career as a police reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago. He spent 17 years with CBS in Chicago and New York before moving to Chicago Public Television in 1974.

Kathleen Cox has been President and Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting since July 1, 2004. Formerly, she was the CPB’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. Cox joined CPB in June 1997 as Associate General Counsel. She served as Acting General Counsel from October 1997 until her promotion to General Counsel in February 1998. In August 1999, she was promoted to Senior Vice President, Policy, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, where she oversaw the activities of the offices of General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, Government Relations and Corporate Communications. Before joining CPB, Cox spent nine years as Intellectual Property Counsel at Bell Atlantic Corporation in Washington, DC. During her tenure, she established and headed the Intellectual Property Group, which was responsible for all matters in this area affecting the Bell Atlantic Corporation. Cox has also worked as an attorney in law firms in Washington, DC and in Los Angeles, CA. In 1996, Cox received a masters degree from Georgetown University’s Graduate School of Public Policy where she focused on legislation regarding intellectual property and communications issues. Cox earned a law degree from the University of Chicago in 1979. She also has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Virginia. Cox is a member of the American Bar Association and the Federal Communications Bar Association.

Sherri Hope Culver is currently General Manager for WYBE-TV in Philadelphia. Culver has been active in television and communications for over 16 years as a broadcast and communications consultant and has developed numerous television programs and worked with businesses to utilize television more effectively. As Executive Producer/Manager of Media Productions for New Jersey Network (a regional PBS affiliate), she managed a fully equipped production facility and supervised the production of hundreds of programs. One of these programs, The Turtle Stone: Legend of Abbott Farm, went on to win two regional Emmy awards and the New Jersey Historic Preservation award. Culver is an honors graduate of Temple University School of Communications and Theater. She was named as one of the “Forty Under Forty” by the Philadelphia Business Journal, recognizing emerging business leaders; and received the SARAH Award from Women in Communications.

Lawrence Grossman is a longtime television journalist, former President of NBC News (1984-88), and former President and CEO of PBS (1976-84). Grossman has published articles about emerging electronic media in journals such as the Columbia Journalism Review and the Media Studies Journal, and he is the author of The Electronic Republic: Reshaping Democracy in the Information Age (1995). Grossman was a Senior Fellow at the Gannett Center of Media Studies at Columbia University, a distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Miami, and the Frank Stanton Chair on the First Amendment at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He currently serves as co-chairman of the Digital Promise Project, as a trustee of Connecticut Public Broadcasting and various nonprofit health organizations. Grossman also serves as a television columnist for Columbia Journalism Review, and as a Dupont-Columbia Journalism Award juror.

D. Carroll Joynes is Executive Director and co-founder of the Cultural Policy Center at The University of Chicago. He received his Ph.D. in European History in 1981 at The University of Chicago, taught on the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York, and then returned to The University of Chicago as Associate Dean of Humanities in 1994. In addition to overseeing the development of the Center, he is currently part of a research team that is producing a comprehensive map of minority participation in cultural institutions in Chicago; he is also writing a series of essays on boards of trustees in non-profit cultural organizations. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Newberry Library and is on the Chicago Committee of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Kevin Klose is President and Chief Executive Officer for National Public Radio. A former editor, national as well as foreign correspondent with The Washington Post, Klose is an award-winning author and international broadcasting executive. Prior to joining NPR in December 1998, Klose served as Director of U.S. International Broadcasting, overseeing the U.S. Government’s global radio and television news services (1997-98); and President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), broadcasting to Central Europe and the former Soviet Union (1994-97). Prior to RFE/RL, Klose was an editor and reporter at The Washington Post for 25 years. His various positions at the newspaper included City Editor (1974-76); Moscow Bureau Chief (1977-1981); Midwest correspondent (1983-1987); and Deputy National Editor (1987-1990). Mr. Klose received a Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, at Harvard. A former Woodrow Wilson National Fellow, he serves on the board of Independent Sector in Washington, DC. He is the author of Russia and the Russians: Inside the Closed Society, winner of the Overseas Press Club’s Cornelius Ryan Award; and co-author of four other books.

Dale Kunkel is currently a Professor of Communication at the University of Arizona. He received his Ph.D. from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California in 1984 and has most recently been a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Kunkel is considered an expert on children’s media policy and has delivered invited testimony at hearings before the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Federal Communications Commission. From 1994 to 1998, Kunkel worked as a principal investigator on the National Television Violence Study, examining the risks associated with different types of violent portrayals on television. That project, which systematically evaluated approximately 10,000 programs, is widely recognized as the largest scientific study of television content ever conducted. More recently, Kunkel has completed research examining the television industry’s new system of V-chip program ratings; he has conducted several studies assessing the nature of sexual socialization messages contained in entertainment television programming as well.

John Lawson began service as President and CEO of the Association of Public Television Stations in April 2001. During Lawson’s tenure as president, Congress approved the extension and expansion of public television's “Ready to Learn and Ready to Teach” programs in the educational reform bill, also known as the “No Child Left Behind Act,” signed into law by President Bush in January 2002. In 1993, Lawson founded Convergence Services, Inc., a consulting and lobbying firm that focused on educational technology policy and which he ran until accepting the APTS position. Lawson also has produced and hosted seven major satellite videoconferences on educational technology, reaching thousands of schools, libraries and colleges across the U.S. Previously, he worked at South Carolina ETV Network and headed an environmental foundation. Lawson was appointed to the Federal Communications Commission's Media Security and Reliability Council in 2002. Lawson also served on the board of the National Coalition for Technology in Education and Training. Lawson holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in International Studies from the University of South Carolina and serves on the National Advisory Council for the University's College of Liberal Arts.

Deborah Linebarger has conducted research for the past 6 years examining the impact of media use on the development of young children. Her work has focused on describing the effects of early and concurrent television viewing on adolescent academic and social outcomes, the use of print on television to improve literacy skills in preschool through 3rd graders, and the relationship between media use and language development in infants and toddlers. Her interests include the features found in children’s educational television, computer software, the internet, and video games that evoke and sustain attention as well as the contextual factors (e.g., perceptions of media, mediation of the experience, gender) that potentially impact this attention. Linebarger received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, and in 1998, she began a post-graduate academic career as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Juniper Gardens Children’s Project, a research center located at the University of Kansas. After receiving a federal grant from the Office of Special Education Projects, US Department of Education (1999) to examine the use of print on television to improve literacy skills in 2nd graders, she accepted an academic appointment as an Assistant Research Professor at the University of Kansas. During that time, she won contracts to evaluate new television programs including Between the Lions and Dora the Explorer and consulted on the development and evaluation of other educational television and interactive products. She has been Assistant Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania since September 2002.

Torey Malatia is the President and General Manager of WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, which now has the second largest weekly public radio audience in the nation. Malatia holds bachelor’s and master's degrees in English literature and has completed two additional years of advanced coursework at Toronto's Centre for Medieval Studies. His first exposure to radio came as a student at Arizona State University and his radio resume is an example of leadership from the ground up -- over the past 30 years he's been a host, producer, account executive, music director, program director, and station manager for commercial and public radio in formats ranging from classical music to news/talk.

William J. McCarter is president emeritus of Window To The World Communications, Inc. and its three divisions, WTTW/Channel 11, The Chicago Production Center and WFMT-FM & The Radio Networks, each of which serves the Chicago metropolitan area and the nation. McCarter began his career with the ABC Television network and has held various programming and management positions in both public and commercial television and radio. In 1971, McCarter assumed leadership of WTTW/Channel 11 and led the station to national prominence, winning several awards for the station along the way. In 1995, he was selected to receive the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle Award in recognition of his more than 25 years of service to the television industry and his significant contributions to Chicago broadcasting. McCarter retired from WTTW in 1998. He has also served as president of WETA TV-FM in Washington, D.C., and as chairman of America’s Public Television Stations.

Newton Minow was one of the most controversial figures ever to chair the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Appointed in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, he stimulated great public debate over television programming by challenging industry leaders to "sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there […] I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland." After leaving the FCC, he served on the Board of Governors of the Public Broadcasting Service and was the Chairman of the Board there from 1978 to 1980. He has also served as chairman of the Chicago Education and Television Association and the RAND Corporation. He has been Professor of Communication of Policy and Law in the Annenberg Program at Northwestern University since 1987. Minow is also a Board Member of the Media Management Center at Northwestern. He currently serves as senior counsel to the law firm of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, the country’s largest corporate law firm. He is the author or co-author of five books, and has received numerous honorary degrees.

Pat Mitchell is president and CEO of PBS, a position she has held since March 2000. Prior to assuming this position, she served as president of CNN Productions and Time, Inc. Television. Mitchell has a long, varied, and distinguished career in television. She has worked for all three major broadcast networks, as well as cable networks, serving as a news reporter, anchor, talk show host, producer, and executive. From 1972 to 1979, she worked as producer, reporter, anchor, and program host in local broadcast television. From 1979 to1982, she served as correspondent and substitute anchor for NBC’s Today Show. She formed her own production company in 1983, and joined with TBS, Inc. in 1992. A native Georgian, Mitchell earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English at the University of Georgia.

James Pagliarini is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Twin Cities Public Television (KTCA) in St. Paul, Minnesota. He joined the organization in September of 1997. Prior to joining Twin Cities Public Television, he was CEO and General Manager of public television station KNPB/Channel 5 in Reno, Nevada. Pagliarini, with a team from the University of Nevada-Reno, helped found KNPB in 1983. He served two terms as a member of the Board of Directors of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and has held positions on the PBS Board in the Executive, Nominating, and Finance Committees. He has also served on numerous national task forces exploring and refining the business of public television, including the National Task Force on Future Funding, the PBS Task Force on Pricing Policies and Programming, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s (CPB) Television Policy Committee. He is a past Chairman of the Pacific Mountain Network’s Board of Directors, past President of the Nevada Broadcasters Association, and served a two-year term as the National Coordinator of public television’s Small Station Association.

Alvin H. Perlmutter, Director of the Independent Production Fund, has produced highly acclaimed informational programming for over thirty years. Perlmutter’s television programs have aired on PBS, the commercial networks, and cable in the US and have been broadcast throughout Europe and the Far East. Prior to forming his own company, Mr. Perlmutter served as NBC News Vice President where he was responsible for all network documentaries and news magazine programs, and earlier as Director of Public Affairs Programming and Program Manager of WNBC-TV, New York.

C. Cybele Raver, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Human Potential and Public Policy at The University of Chicago, focuses on the well-being of children and families, with particular emphasis on predicting both success and difficulties among young children in poverty. Her policy expertise is on strengthening low-income children’s school-readiness in the contexts of early educational interventions such as Head Start. She also examines predictors of optimal parenting among low-income families with infants and young children, particularly in the contexts of welfare reform and mothers’ employment in low-wage work. Raver is committed to understanding ways that scientific models can be tested and modified to fit complex, real-world situations, and emphasizes the value of combining research tools from disciplines such as economics, sociology, and psychology to effectively address the developmental needs of children. Before joining the faculty of The University of Chicago, she was an assistant professor in Cornell University's Department of Human Development. Raver earned her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Yale University.

Steve Robinson has been with 98.7 WFMT in Chicago since 2000 and currently serves as the Senior Vice President for Radio at the station. Under Robinson’s direction, 98.7 WFMT is enjoying the largest audience and highest ratings in the station’s 52-year history. The WFMT Radio Network is now widely recognized as one of the finest producers of syndicated fine arts programming in the world, offering such successful and critically acclaimed programs as Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin, the world premiere of Princess Magogo, the world’s first Zulu language opera, and the new series Global Maestro featuring Chicago’s own Paul Freeman. His innovative programming was recently recognized by ASCAP, who awarded him the 2003 Deems Taylor Award for his contributions to and support of excellence in radio programming. Before coming to Chicago, Robinson was active in several aspects of the Nebraska Public Radio Network, including programming, development and outreach. He is a native of Boston and holds a bachelor of music degree from Boston University. He is active in a number of Chicago area non-profit arts organizations and several national public radio associations.

Dan Schmidt is President and CEO of Network Chicago/Window to the World Communications, Inc., a $46 million non-profit multi-media initiative comprised of WTTW Channel 11, 98.7WFMT and networkchicago.com, as well as The Chicago Production Center and the WFMT Radio Networks. He holds an M.A. in Arts Administration from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and has also studied at Boston University Tanglewood Institute. From 1979-1991, Schmidt held a variety of management positions with Minnesota Public Radio. He has served on the Board of Directors of the U.S. Committee for UNICEF, as a consultant for Chamber Music America and is a member of Radio Broadcasters of Chicagoland. He is also co-author of the book, Administration in the Arts: An Annotated Bibliography. He is currently a member of the PBS Legislative Advisory Committee and sits on the Boards of the Illinois Arts Alliance and Foundation (for which he also serves as Treasurer), American Public Television (APT) and the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations.

Jerold M. Starr, an activist and award-winning sociologist, is founder and Executive Director of Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting, an organization established to promote noncommercial broadcasting in the service of the public interest. He has been a member of the West Virginia University faculty since 1976, and has held the title of Professor since 1985. He received his Ph.D. from Brandeis University and served on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania from 1969-76. He has also been a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow and a Fulbright Fellow. Starr has published four books and numerous articles over the years and has been active in many professional associations, serving as President of the Association for Humanist Sociology, President of the Research Committee on Youth of the International Sociological Association, Meeting Manager for the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and a member of the American Sociological Association Committee on Sociology in the Secondary Schools.

Cass R. Sunstein graduated in 1975 from Harvard College and in 1978 from Harvard Law School magna cum laude. After graduation, he clerked for Justice Benjamin Kaplan of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. Before joining the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School, he worked as an attorney-advisor in the Office of the Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Sunstein has testified before congressional committees on many subjects, and he has been involved in constitution-making and law reform activities in a number of nations, including Ukraine, Poland, China, South Africa, and Russia. He was a member of the President's Advisory Committee on the Public Service Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters. Professor Sunstein is a member of the Department of Political Science as well as the Law School. He is author of many articles and a number of books, including After the Rights Revolution: Reconceiving the Regulatory State, Constitutional Law (co-authored with Geoffrey Stone, Louis M. Seidman, and Mark Tushnet), Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict, Free Markets and Social Justice, Designing Democracy: What Constitutions Do, Republic.com, Risk and Reason.

András Szántó is the Director of the National Arts Journalism Project (NAJP) at Columbia University. Szántó joined the NAJP in 1997 after serving as research manager of the Media Studies Center, a media research think-tank in New York. He was appointed director of the program in 2004. Szántó has co-authored and edited four books as well as numerous critical essays and research reports about culture, media, and arts policy. His reporting and commentary about art, culture and politics have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, The American Prospect, Interiors, Architecture, Print, I.D., The International Herald Tribune, Variety, MSNBC, and other domestic and international publications. Since 1997, he has overseen numerous research initiatives and conferences at the NAJP, and he has lectured extensively in academic and cultural institutions in the United States and abroad. Szántó earned his Ph.D. in sociology at Columbia University with a dissertation on transformations in New York’s visual art world. He has taught courses on the sociology of culture at Columbia University and at Barnard College.

Monique Ward is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan. Her research interests center on the development of children's and adolescents' conceptions of gender and sexuality and on the contribution of those notions to their social and sexual decision-making. Topics she has researched include how children interpret and use messages they receive about male-female relations from their parents and from the media; adolescents' interpretations of sexual content on television and its relation to their expectations about dating and sexual relationships; and children's understanding of society's gender hierarchy and the impact of this knowledge on their social interests and gender stereotyping. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of California-Los Angeles.